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From the October 2004 Anthropology News Preparing the agenda for the 2005 AAA Annual Meeting in San Francisco was a monumental task, given the many high-quality panels submitted for consideration. APLA was asked to sponsor a large number of excellent papers and panels this year, perhaps an indication of its growing membership; as a result, many fine panels did not make the program. Decisions about panels were based on the following criteria: relevance of the panel or paper to the conference theme; relevance to contemporary theory and practice in anthropology; appropriate fit with APLA; and the coherence of individual papers and the panel as a whole. Every attempt was made to cover the broad range of interests represented within APLA, so this year’s program features panels on such topics as neoliberalism, democracy, self-determination, sovereignty, ethics, human rights, law, policy, governance, property rights, bureaucracy and the state. Anthropology of Rights This year APLA will be co-sponsoring (with the AAA Committee on Human Rights) an invited panel on Transnationalism and the Anthropology of Rights, organized by Mark Goodale and Sally Engle Merry. This session will bring together anthropologists working in a variety of sub-disciplines and regions to critically examine current research and theorizing on the broad topic of “rights.” As a category this includes the many dimensions of the international human rights regime, indigenous rights movements, democratization and state-building, rights-based approaches to post-conflict management (including, for example, rights-violation tribunals), rights-based struggles by (and for) diasporic refugees and the various institutions and social actors committed to rights-based humanitarian development. Anthropologists in greater numbers are beginning to study different dimensions of each of these processes, which unfold from the local to the transnational and therefore unsettle traditional anthropological understandings of both the site of research and the proper relationship between the anthropologist and others involved in the production of knowledge. Through its papers, discussion and commentary, this panel will explore these issues of theory and praxis with the goal of synthesizing and situating current research on rights while suggesting ways that anthropological studies of rights can make interventions into wider debates on transnationalism, governmentality and the meaning of “culture.” Neoliberalism and Democracy A second invited panel on “Neoliberalism and Democracy: Challenges, Alternatives, Possibilities” was organized by Teresa Caldiera and James Ferguson. The panel explores the intricate entanglements between democracy and neoliberalism, which are especially pronounced in countries where democratization has coincided with the implementation of economic structural adjustment. Yet studies of democratization and neoliberalism tend to remain separate, failing to recognize their complex interconnections. In this session, the organizers propose to open a new area of inquiry by tracing these interrelations, outlining the types of governmental rationality they enact, and identifying some of the political problems and possibilities their coincidence generates. The papers propose to rebalance the discussion by holding the two terms apart theoretically while considering their coincidence ethnographically. The papers aim to contribute to a better understanding of the political limits and possibilities of contemporary neoliberal democracies by identifying emergent forms of politics not readily accommodated within a pro- or anti-neoliberalism binary and rethinking the role of NGOs and “civil society” as agents of both democratization and neoliberalism. Trust and Risk AAA organizers are encouraging sections to consider alternative formats for the meetings, including the use of more poster sessions. With this in mind, APLA has invited a poster session organized by Elizabeth Faier titled “Trust and Risk in Modern Society: Strategies, Meanings, and Mythologies.” In his classic ethnography Magic, Science and Religion, Malinowski asserted that two distinct and twinned domains—the sacred and the profane—exist in all primitive communities. Associating magic and religion with the sacred, science with the profane, Malinowski interrogated the basis of and for knowledge in each domain by focusing on key characteristics, such as belief, morality and rationality. This poster session builds on Malinowski’s seminal work by exploring mythologies and strategies for navigating trust and risk in the modern world. APLA is also proud to present a human rights forum with noted author Beatriz Manz, to follow the annual APLA business meeting. Beatriz Manz is professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. This forum was put together by Christine Kovic and Linda Green, who will lead the discussion along with APLA President June Nash. Janice Newberry and Daniel Goldstein contributed to this column. Please send ideas for future columns to the contributing editors, Michelle Bigenho (mbigenho@hampshire.edu) and Daniel Goldstein (dgoldste@holycross.edu).
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